The Nature of True Repentance, Part 1 I shall next show what Gospel repentance is. Repentance is a grace of God's Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed. For a further amplification, know that repentance is a spiritual medicine made up of six special ingredients: 1. Sight of sin 2. Sorrow for sin 3. Confession of sin 4. Shame for sin 5. Hatred for sin 6. Turning from sin If any one is left out, it loses its virtue.

Daily bread may make us live comfortably but forgiveness of sins will make us die comfortably.

It [repentance] is not so much to endear us to Christ as to endear Christ to us. Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.

As our sin is ever before us, so God's promise must be ever before us. As we much feel our sting, so we must look up to Christ, our "brazen serpent" (Num 21:8-9).

Affliction only reaches the body, but sin goes further: it poisons the fancy, disorders the affections. Affliction is but corrective; sin is destructive. Affliction can but take away the life; sin takes away the soul.

What a vast difference is there between the first covenant and the second! In the first covenant it was, if you commit sin you die; in the second it is, if you confess sin you shall have mercy.

The eye is for both seeing and weeping. Sin must first be seen before it can be wept for.

It is better that men should reproach you for repenting than that God should damn you for not repenting.

Sin is not only a defection—but a pollution. It is to the soul as rust is to gold, as a stain to beauty. It makes the soul red with guilt, and black with filth. Sin in Scripture is compared to a "menstruous cloth," and to a "plague-sore.

The Scripture is a mirror to show us our sins; Christ's blood is a fountain to wash them away.

No matter what mistakes you have made - no matter how you've messed things up - you can still make a new beginning. The person who fully realises this suffers less from the shock and pain of failure and sooner gets off to a new beginning.

When we hold secrets it creates shame, and shame is a great barrier to success. When you carry the shame you do not allow yourself to fulfill your greatest potential, you do not honour the truth of yourself, you do not honour your highest self. When you let go of the secret, only then you live to your greatest potential.